students of jesus

I don’t like blogging about myself, but I found myself the object lesson of this week’s Monday Memo. I was sick most of last week. Nothing serious, long-lasting, or life threatening, but enough to force me to lay still for three days, and slow me up for three more.

Illness can be humbling because we discover again that we are frail—there’s no great revelation in that fact. What I did discover for the first time was how much I focused on myself. With each passing day of illness the only subject that interested me was, well, me. I only talked to my Heavenly Father about my discomfort. I ignored the welfare of those I loved, and although I would never have spoken the words out loud, I expected the world to revolve around me.

The truly humbling discovery after just one week of illness was how much I have allowed my body to rule over my soul and spirit. When the Accuser jousted with God in the book of Job, the second accusation centered on Job’s love for his own body, “stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.” (Job 2:5) I’m happy to report that I didn’t curse God, but I certainly complained quite a bit!

The Father, in his patient and loving way, gently directed me toward Psalm 73:26:
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.

Sickness does not come from God, but he can use our weakness to draw us after him. What is the strength of your life?

Sometimes a fish out of water brings the ocean with him. That’s the case with Steve Peifer, a former heavy-hitter with Oracle Corporation who left the corporate world for the other side of the globe and a new calling as a missionary. In less than 10 years Steve developed a ministry to feed 18,000 Kenyan children and ushers them into the 21st-century via computer skills training—all in the name of Jesus. Even CNN recognized that this is no ordinary missionary activity. They featured Steve’s work during their 2007 CNN Heroes Award Presentation. Steve’s use of available media demonstrates what can happen when technology kneels in the service of the kingdom of God. This is his story.

The Medium
In the late 1990s, Steve, his wife Nancy, and their two children left the fast-paced Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex because for them that world had changed forever. Nancy had recently given birth to their third child, a little boy named Stephen Wrigley, who had a condition known as Trisomy 13--and as a result died eight days later. Suddenly, the corporate fast-track lost its appeal. When a missionary friend invited Steve and Nancy to Africa, they went.

From his first days in Africa, Steve used the only communications tool he knew—email—to distribute a newsletter about the work they were doing. The emails were simple and only featured text, but 10 years ago the use of email itself was light years ahead of the way most missionary newsletters were distributed. The emails were 300-400 words long, they were well written, and they were easily forwarded. Steve’s friends in the corporate world read them and forwarded them to their contacts—people who had never met Steve but were moved by the compelling stories in his newsletters.

The Peifer’s ability to stay in touch with personal and professional friends may serve as a new paradigm for ministries to communicate effectively with their supporters. In the long-lost land of 1999, most communication from missionaries to their support bases back home consisted of homespun paper newsletters sent by snail mail. The information was communicated in black-and-white, print-only, hard copy pages that only the most motivated reader made time to read.

The ease of email distribution allowed Steve’s support base to grow from the very beginning. Of course, it wasn’t just the choice of email as the primary communication medium that contributed to success. The newsletters were compelling and each one conveyed true stories about real people, rather than the standard project updates, financial need appeals, or ministry reports. Some recipients began to archive Steve’s stories because the email medium made them easy to store and retrieve. As digital photography and email bandwidth increased over the years, future newsletters blossomed with color pictures and links that allowed readers to explore the work going on in Kenya.

Eventually, Steve was contacted by the Solution Beacon Foundation (www.solutionbeacon.com), the non-profit arm of a software specialty company, which offered to publish and distribute Steve’s stories in book form. The book, Your Pal, Steve (available on Amazon), introduced Steve’s email newsletter to a wider audience.
 

The Plan
Many parents in Kenya cannot feed their children even one meal a day, so when forced between sending their kids to school or sending them out to find food, school loses. Steve’s idea was to link a guaranteed lunch with education. If a Kenyan mother is certain her child will receive at least one excellent meal a day at school, then school becomes the right choice. Once the program was implemented, dropout rates fell to nearly zero, attendance soared, and children received an education.

The second step in Steve’s plan was to make sure that the education the kids received would equip them for the 21st-century. Steve developed computer centers that were housed in used international shipping containers and powered by solar panels. Each center contained 8-10 laptops that enabled children to learn basic word-processing and spreadsheet skills—the kind of education that is useful anywhere in the world.
Obviously, a plan that ambitious required a good deal of financial support. Thus, the Peifer’s wrote about their work as often as they felt they had something to share. As they wrote, they did so in a way that was personal, conversational, and inviting. Nancy Peifer wrapped up their approach to writing his way: “We hope to come across as your next door neighbor, except our house happens to be in Africa.”

The Response
The response to these mission work dispatches has been remarkable. First, out of about 1,400 recipients, each newsletter generates 80 or more responses. Because of the immediacy of Facebook, Twitter, and email, Steve’s base of supporters can respond with a simple comment or with real substance. One regular reader headed to Kenya on his own dime because he wanted to produce a video about the work the Peifers are doing. Others respond with financial support, but also with whatever imagination they can bring to the project. Solar-powered flashlights, laptops donated by corporations, and even bags of Cheetos have arrived unexpectedly at the Peifers’ doorstep.
Compelling stories, colorful graphics, and an email distribution list that bypassed standard church targets in favor of businessmen and women all led to the visibility that attracted CNN. In 2007 CNN sent a video crew to document Steve’s and Nancy’s work for the aforementioned Heroes Award Presentation. In addition to one video produced by an impassioned supporter, Steve’s ministry now gained a second video produced by one of the top TV networks in the world.

Steve and Nancy are reluctant to acknowledge how unique their approach to communications really is in the context of the missions world, but it’s clear that the business world, indeed the world apart from the church, embraces communications strategy at a different pace and with a different paradigm. Most ministries would do well to re-examine their communications choices with an eye toward business methodology. For ministries, any medium that allows the message to be transmitted quickly and without substantial cost is one worth pursuing. Many of the Peifers’ current supporters have never met the family or been to Kenya, but receiving a forwarded email that told a compelling story drew them into the circle of supporters.

These days, Steve’s newsletters are also distributed on Facebook—where most of the under-30 crowd hangs out—to a group called African Kids Need Food Too, and on the Peifers’ website (www.kenyakidscan.org) in the form of blog posts. Again, he is reaching out to a non-traditional audience of potential supporters, many of whom would never sit still for a missionary presentation at their local church, if they even attend church at all.

To find out more about Steve’s work in Africa, you can visit the website or, if you’re so inclined, jump on the next plane to Kenya.

For the longest time I have been intrigued by the question, what does it mean to hear from God? God willingly speaks to his children, yet there is no guarantee that I will hear him. If I do hear him, how can I be sure I will hear all he has in mind? How can I be sure I will understand Him? Hearing from God requires humility. When the unfathomable Creator of the universe speaks to a finite creature like me, I should approach his words with reverence.

Take the passage in Matthew 16: 13 – 28, for example. (Go ahead and take a moment to read it) Jesus had taken his disciples beyond the borders of Israel and asked them some penetrating questions. By the end of the conversation, God had spoken, but the effort to understand was just beginning. I’d like to suggest three key verses from this passage if we want to understand how God speaks.

Revelation: “Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.” (v 17) Some kinds of knowledge come only through revelation. Peter had been on the road with Jesus for some time. He had seen Jesus do incredible things, heard Jesus teach with authority, and even participated with Jesus in miraculous events. Even though Peter had such a wealth of experience, his knowledge of Jesus’ identity was revealed by to him God. I wonder how often I lean on my own understanding: there’s no doubt I can learn from my experiences or grow from the times God has used me in ministry. Some things, however—some very important things—must come from God. Let’s not be tempted by thinking, “well we have the Bible now, that’s how God speaks today.” Be careful! The religious leaders of Jesus’ day thought the same thing. Jesus had strong words for them, and if we have ears to hear, strong words for us as well: “You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you'll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about me!” (John 5:39 The Message) I’m grateful for the scripture but I need to keep in mind that the scripture points to God. It’s possible to read the Bible for an hour and never hear God’s voice.

Explanation: “From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” (v 21) Revelation is not enough: we need help understanding what we have heard. Can you imagine the response of the disciples after Jesus confirmed he was the Messiah? Their excitement and anticipation must have filled them with expectation. The challenge before Jesus was directing their energy toward God’s intention instead of their own ideas about the coming of the Anointed One. In the century before Jesus several “Messiahs” had put themselves forward to the people of Israel. Even prominent rabbis had endorsed these Deliverers. Both Israel and Rome were on the watch for a new “King of the Jews.” The true King of Kings had a profoundly different sense of divine mission. How many times have I taken the revelation God has given me and run off with my own ideas about what comes next? And “what came next” was shocking to the disciples!

Decision: “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.’” (v 24) Who knew that following the Christ would mean taking up the walk of a condemned man? The phrase “take up your cross” has been softened by the centuries. Many 21st century Christians consider any inconvenience to be “my cross to bear.” The men who heard Jesus that day in Caesarea Philippi knew exactly what “cross-talk” was all about. Our modern-day equivalent might be summed up in the phrase currently used on death row, “Dead man walking.” Jesus was trying to indicate not only the manner of his death, but their destiny as well. Having received revelation from God and explanation from Jesus, the disciples still had a decision to make. God had not spoken to them “FYI,” God had spoken in order to draw them into the action!

I have tried to imagine the roller coaster of emotions the disciples experienced in a matter of minutes: revelation concerning Jesus’ identity, explanation from Jesus himself regarding the true role of the Messiah, and chillingly, the realization that Jesus was calling them to follow him.

Whenever we hear the voice of God there is something more than revelation. He has a purpose when he speaks, and we must choose whether we will fill our ears or let his word fill our lives.